[Biffer1997]

Hello! New here (today).

Just wondered if my husband and I are the only ones waiting to adopt an older child?

Were approved in April of 2005 and hoping for a match & placement in the summer (since I am home all summer).

We are frustrated because there are loads of children on photolisting sites, so why is this so difficult? I call social workers and leave messages, yet my calls go unreturned. I thought their goal was to place the children??? I realize they are busy but I don't feel it is unrealistic for them to return the calls within a week.

Anyone else out there feel the same???

[Indy]

There are so many stories here of calling, waiting, no returned calls, lousy caseworkers, lousy foster parents, going to committee, getting selected as the "backup family", etc. I would say that you are at the hardest point of the pre-adoptive stage. Hang in there! You can vent here!

My suggestion is to find things to keep yourself focused and busy. Make a bio of your family to send to workers. Create a "life book" that you can send to workers about your family. I know you have your home study done. I wrote a letter to workers that was similiar to the home study, but in the first person. I really wrote a mini-biography about myself, my ambitions for myself and my sons. I spoke about the reasons I wanted to adopt as a single father. I listed my support system and the benefits of my family. I took pictures of the local schools, my community, and things I like to do. I have a digital camera, so I was able to set it up on the color printer and print multiple sheets (or email).

You can visit different state and private sites to read about the children available. They also have very good information about the standards and the state policies for adoption. You can also research different diagnosis and determine what you can and cannot handle.

In a round about way, I hope I have helped. I (and many others here) know how you feel. We also know it is a part of the process that we cannot change. So, we deal with it and work with it. AND when we can...we help change it.

Best of luck to you and family.

[waiting68]

My husband and I are in the same situation!!! We live in idaho, and have tried to work with our local department of health and welfare, but it seems as though they don't want to make us a priority because we don't want to foster. We are looking nation wide for our future child, but no luck here either. we have had no return phone calls as well. It is a frustrating adventure, and i feel just as anxious about it as i am sure you do. I know something will work out for us, we just have to wait for the right child to come along. Thats what keeps me going. If you need someone to talk to feel free to send me a message because support really helps. You are not alone (although I know it sometimes seems that way).

[Biffer1997]

Thanks for your words of encouragement! I too know that all things happen for a reason, and what is meant to be will be. However this is a powerless situation, and I am not accustomed to that. I told my social worker that this is like waiting for a job (send your homestudy (resume), make your follow-up contacts, and wait/hope.--mixed in with alot of self-convincing, fears, doubts, and anxiety.)

One thing I found worked on getting people to return calls--if you have left several messages over a long period of time, tell the person you will give them x number of days (I said 2) to return my call or I would be contacting their supervisor. Wouldn't you know it--he found time to call me back an hour later. Then again in the afternoon once he had checked on something.

[missw005]

Biffer 1997,

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, can I so relate. I've been trying to get my third special needs child for OVER A YEAR!!!!!

It is extremely frustrating, with no end in sight. At least I know eventually it WILL work.........I'm just short on patience right now.

It took me 7 years (yes I said 7 YEARS!!!) to get my first child, because I was not proactive enough on my end. You just have to keep checking and keep calling these SWs to get your child.

As one poster said, "you have to fight for your child, as they can't fight to find you." (or something like that)

But the being home all summer issue is mine as well. Both of my boys were placed with me during the school year, and I barely squeezed in 2 weeks off - then worked 2 or 3 days a week for a couple weeks after that. Couldn't afford to after that, though. So I thought, THIS will be the year! I will get a placement during the summer, when I have it all off to spend with a new child. But...........NO. Since I primarily look out of state, the chances of this happening now (at the end of July) is slim and none. ICPC paperwork takes sooooooo long, I'm out of luck on a summer placement. And it's extremely frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm here with you!!!!! Venting helps, so vent away! Eventually we'll all get our kids. (right???? )

Sandy

[dadfor2]

if you saw a child on a photolisting...then call the agency that actually has the childs case....

there are two seperate people...your worker, and the kids worker

do not count on your worker to do that....they should, but they dont....

so if you found a child, then call them, and send them your homestudy...then you will see some action.

[wenrl]

I have posted our experience several times, so excuse me if you've heard it, but I will do it again. I can so relate to how frustrated you must be. When I first started coming here, waiting was all I caould talk about and I was on the verge of insanity. Coincidentally, we are about to start the home-study process for our second child and I am SOOO hoping the wait will not be what it was the first time. It's so weird how there is such a big deal about older kids needing homes, but when you are ready and waiting to provide one, it seems that all those kids just disappear.

What worked wonders for us was creating a website for our family with photos of our house, our neighborhood, the school our child would attend, our pets and so on. Not many workers seemed to make time to actually look at it, but the first one who did loved the idea, forwarded it to her supervisor, wanted to recommend other people do the same and even better, matched us with the child we had been begging her to consider us for during four months!

These are what I have found to be the does and donts of waiting.

1. Do pick up a new hobby for yourself, take a class or learn something new.
2. Do not sit around and do nothing but obsess and wait.
3. Do read and consider every possibility about adoption, foster care, special needs, attachment etc.
4. Do attend conferences and get to know others in your situation.
5. Don't buy too many toys before you have a child and if you do, do not take them out and set them up so they are ready to go and look inviting. (I couldn't control myself. Our daughter came home asking whose toys those were and who was in her room before her. I wish I would have left them in the box. Also, she was overwhelmed with too much at first I think. Plus, I bought tons of Barbies and she is into Bratz, so I could have spent money better if I'd waited.)
6. Do furnish the child's room as much as possible, but keep it generic, keeping age in mind and how much the child may want to add their own twist to decore. Do be careful about adding stuff you think is cool though, because your child may not agree. (Our daughter had a loft bed, but she is scared of sleeping that high, so it was a bad idea. Luckily she had two beds and could sleep low to the ground. That great loft bed has never been touched and we broke it down to make another bed for another room.)
7. Do find some way to set yourself apart from other waiting families. It is a competition, no matter what anyone says, and if you can be a face while someone else is a document, you'll have an edge.
8. Do not feel bad about being annoying. Call. Call. Call. Write. Email. Visit the office or whatever you need to do. Like I said, we spent 4 months calling our daughter's worker after we saw her on an online listing. It took her all that time to look at our homestudy and she lost it twice. If we hadn't been proactive, we would probably still be waiting and so might our child.
9. Do attend adoption parties, but...
10. Do not get discouraged when you don't find a good match at an adoption party or see one online. Do not feel depressed when you are turned down for the child you knew was meant to be yours. Do not get so desperate that you want to overlook all those things you thought you couldn't handle.

Good luck to you. We can all relate. Waiting stinks big time.

Wendy

[Barksum]

Ah. Waiting. I thought the 3rd time around we'd have this down pat, but...it is STILL just as aggrivating! Bleah.

Wenrl, we've been remodelling. Does this count as a "new hobby"? I guess we aren't sitting around with nothing to do! ROFL Right now we are considering listing Sheetrock Dust as a spice in all our recipes. Do you think the kids will miss it when we don't add it??

[wenrl]

Barksum,

You scare me. Please PM me if you have the time between nailing in sheet rock and tell me more about your waiting. What state are you in? What age etc. are you looking for? How long have you been waiting? What states are you looking into?

I'm thinking (or hoping) that the second time will be much easier and faster because now we are "experienced" parents and the workers will all love us and call us all the time, begging to meet them for disclosures and thinking we're the greatest for our mad skills in parenting. Could that be wishful thinking?

Your experience seems to indicate otherwise....

Wendy

[Barksum]

ROFL Yeah, I thought we'd be seen as "experienced", better prepared and able to handle all the little quirks that come with adoption and particularly adopting from foster care. Nah, they see that we have THREE *gasp* children and we want another one. Oi. If only the cw's would give me a call...nah, then they'd hear the background noise. Hmm, OK...if only they'd email me they'd know that we are normal. Wait.... Maybe just sending our homestudy IS the best way to do this. LOL

We've been waiting for 2-ish years, but we've also had to take some time off due to some extended family stuff (mom died, sister got breast cancer, grandma died and that was one month last summer) and we needed to kind of recuperate a bit and deal with all that. We were going to not renew our homestudy this time, but I think we may renew one last time. We'll see.

I have 3 children, we're doing well and I am very happy as we are. Still have that little niggle that wants just wuuuuuun more little one, but we'll have to just see what happens.

[gclvaruba]

These are what I have found to be the does and donts of waiting.

1. Do pick up a new hobby for yourself, take a class or learn something new.
2. Do not sit around and do nothing but obsess and wait.
3. Do read and consider every possibility about adoption, foster care, special needs, attachment etc.
4. Do attend conferences and get to know others in your situation.
5. Don't buy too many toys before you have a child and if you do, do not take them out and set them up so they are ready to go and look inviting. (I couldn't control myself. Our daughter came home asking whose toys those were and who was in her room before her. I wish I would have left them in the box. Also, she was overwhelmed with too much at first I think. Plus, I bought tons of Barbies and she is into Bratz, so I could have spent money better if I'd waited.)
6. Do furnish the child's room as much as possible, but keep it generic, keeping age in mind and how much the child may want to add their own twist to decore. Do be careful about adding stuff you think is cool though, because your child may not agree. (Our daughter had a loft bed, but she is scared of sleeping that high, so it was a bad idea. Luckily she had two beds and could sleep low to the ground. That great loft bed has never been touched and we broke it down to make another bed for another room.)
7. Do find some way to set yourself apart from other waiting families. It is a competition, no matter what anyone says, and if you can be a face while someone else is a document, you'll have an edge.
8. Do not feel bad about being annoying. Call. Call. Call. Write. Email. Visit the office or whatever you need to do. Like I said, we spent 4 months calling our daughter's worker after we saw her on an online listing. It took her all that time to look at our homestudy and she lost it twice. If we hadn't been proactive, we would probably still be waiting and so might our child.
9. Do attend adoption parties, but...
10. Do not get discouraged when you don't find a good match at an adoption party or see one online. Do not feel depressed when you are turned down for the child you knew was meant to be yours. Do not get so desperate that you want to overlook all those things you thought you couldn't handle.

This is all such excellent advice it should be a sticky note at the top of the adoption forum! Most importantly, yes, DO be annoying, call everyday if you have to. I swear sometimes they found a child for us 'cause they got sick of speaking to DH on the phone all of the time.

Just wanted to add that you need to take time to enjoy your last days of freedom also. You never know when you will receive THE call...so sleep late, indulge yourselves, go shopping by YOURSELF, be lazy if you feel like it...

In our case, DH and I had have had much more interest in our family since we widened our search from a female 9-12 to a female school age to 12. We also went from adopt to foster to adopt.

County DFCS offered us a sibling group the next day. It did not work out for a variety of reasons however the day we were informed it would not go through was the same day they asked us to foster to adopt our 9 year old dd. She moved in 2 days later, sight unseen and our lives were forever changed.

[kmagnusson]

waiting, waiting, waiting. This past week has been especially hard since last year at this time were to adopt a 2 year old little boy from the county. We had pre-adoptive visits and even did respite care for him. Then a relative came forth, out of the blue and wanted to adopt him. The loss of him being placed with us was very hard.

We have now signed with a private agency and just got our homestudy updated. I have been collecting children from photolists that I thought might be a good match for us and sent the list to our social worker a week ago. Didn't hear anything from him so I called. No return on my phone call. I don't know if he is on vacation or what!! So come Monday he is getting a call and if he is not there I am calling the main office. Our social worker is part time and I don't know if I like that idea.

So I am going to start doing some of the ideas that were posted on the board. The "Do be annoying" one I am starting Monday. I also like the website and "lifebook" ideas. And I have been doing a lot of reading. So Biffer1997, just to let you know you are not out there all alone in the waiting game.

Kathy